The EU PLEADS with Donald Trump, Putin and China not to start a ‘chaotic’ TRADE WAR

Mr Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker are in Beijing to meet Chinese Premier Li Keqiang for an annual China-EU leaders meeting.

Mr Tusk said there was still time to prevent conflict and chaos, after world leaders had placed repeated trade tariffs on one another’s countries.

China and the US are currently engaged in a battle of import tariffs after Donald Trump accused the Asian nation of intellectual property theft.

Last week, Donald Trump launched a further $200billion of tariffs on imports from China.

Seafood, baseball gloves, fruits and vegetables and rain jackets could all now face extra taxes of ten percent when brought into the US.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer announced the new restrictions and blamed China’s “harmful” international trading.

He said: “As a result of China’s retaliation and failure to change its practices, the President has ordered United States Trade Representative (USTR) to begin the process of imposing tariffs of ten percent on an additional $200billion (£150.8million) of Chinese imports.

“This is an appropriate response to obtain the elimination of China’s harmful industrial policies.”

The new sanctions follow 25 percent tariffs worth $34billion (£25.6million) which were imposed by the US on the Asian superstate earlier in July.

American experts have been quick to slam the President’s new rules and accused him of “punishing” ordinary American people.

The Retail Industry Leaders Association said: “The President has broken his promise to bring ‘maximum pain on China, minimum pain on consumers,’ and American families are the ones being punished.”

China has promised to retaliate and complain to the World Trade Organisation following the moves from the Republican firebrand.

They have accused the American President of “trade bullying.”

Russia has also struck back at Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on foreign steel and aluminium.

The EU, India, China and Russia all have applied to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to challenge the US tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminium, which mostly took effect back in March.